Beached whale died of injuries from boat strike

Monday

Jun 11, 2012 at 10:41 AM

An approximately 2-year-old, 18-foot male minke whale died of chronic injuries from a boat strike

By Kate Elizabeth QueramKate.Queram@StarNewsOnline.com

An approximately 2-year-old, 18-foot male minke whale that washed up on Carolina Beach in December died of chronic injuries from a boat strike, according to necropsy results."This animal did experience a vessel strike that caused significant injury, not only to the musculoskeletal system but to the (lungs)," said Ann Pabst, co-director of the state's marine mammal stranding program and a marine biologist at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, which spearheaded the autopsy. "The animal had gone through a healing process, but had eventually succumbed to those injuries."Among other markings, the whale had seven healed propeller wounds on its right dorsal thorax, a section of the body that includes the back muscles. Necropsy results suggested that when the whale collided with the boat, the propellers sliced through its muscles into the lungs, causing catastrophic damage."Those healed propeller wounds had penetrated through the blubber and through the muscle and had gone deep into the thoracic cavity, which is the space that holds your lungs," Pabst said. "The right lung was uniformly necrotic. It had tissue that was dying as well as trying to heal from an injury."The timeline of events, from vessel strike to beach stranding, remains unclear, but the whale was dead before it came ashore – though perhaps not for long."It was in such very good shape that it was very likely alive close to the time of its stranding," Pabst said.Minke whales, a protected but not endangered species, typically swim through North Carolina waters in the colder months of the year, though not usually in close proximity to the shore."It is unusual for them to be this close to the coast, but any time an animal strands, it means that it is kind of outside of its realm of where it would be normally be found," Pabst said.Eleven minke whales have stranded on North Carolina beaches since 1999, most recently at Cape Lookout in January, Pabst said."We are trying to understand how different species of marine mammals are utilizing our waters. Strandings provide us with one long-term database," she said. "We are in the process of using these data ... to better determine when this particular species is in our waters and what it might be doing when it's here."